Captain John Smith

Captain John Smith undoubtedly remains a highly controversial figure in the
history of the USA. Ever since the publication of his Generall Historie in 1624
his narrations
have aroused the readers' suspicions. Until 1890 his Eastern European exploits
were generally accepted as being true, but this changed immediatley with the
publication of a series of notes by Lewis L. Kropf, an amateur Hungarian historian, who publicly declared his doubts that Smith ever was in
Transylvania. Interestingly, also Henry Adams attacked Smith in an article
entitled Captain John Smith. The article appeared in the North American
Review in 1867, although it had actually been written in 1962. Adams
admitted in a private letter that his essay had initially been meant as a rear attack on
the Southerners. Captain John Smith had apparently become a weapon to defile the enemy's sacred
cow. With the year 1953 the history of the reception of Smith's writings
entered a new phase thanks to the publication of Bradford Smith's Captain John Smith: His Life and Legend .
Having collaborated with the Hungarian historian Laura Polanyi Striker Smith came up with
some evidence for Smith's reports. Though criticism tended to be more
favorable after that, it was no less controversial. In 1964, for instance,
Barbour, one of the most acknowledged Smith-biographers, stated
that Striker's objective in her research on Smith's Eastern
European experiences "was vindication rather than the truth" (Barbour, xi).

What exactly has Captain John Smith been reproached with? Bluntly speaking,
he has been accused of lying. Not only was he the only one to publish
and proclaim his deeds, but he also tended to exaggerate and ornament
his narrations. These facts have made him a highly suspicious figure whose
accounts cannot be trusted.

He has often been seen as a braggart, who wrote to magnify his own role in colonial
affairs beyond all recognition. He dared to compare himself to Julius Caesar, who "wrote
his owne Commentaries, holding it nolesse honour to write, than fight" [...]. It is true
that Smith reworked the same material in several books, and he became more insistent on
the importance of his own role with each retelling, but each new work was also a milestone
in Smith's continuing effort to work out a consistent philosophy of colonization.
(Kuppermann, v)

He seems to have anticipated such criticism or perhaps he was even exposed to it during
his lifetime:

I know I shall bee taxed for writing so much of my selfe, but I care not much, because
the judiciall know there are few such Souldiers as are my examples, have writ their owne
actions, nor know I who will or can tell my intents better than my selfe.
(Smith in The Generall Historie quoted in Lemay, 17)

One of the most highly disputed issues in Smith's writings is his miraculous
salvation by Pocahontas in 1607. Though he briefly told the story in the The True Relations (1608) and somewhat elaborated on it in later writings, the public first learned about
the incident only in 1624, when the following account of it was included in The
Generall Historie, that contains the most complete version.

... having feasted him after their best barbarous manner they could, a long consultation was held, but the conclusion was, two great stones were brought before Powhatan:
then as many as could layd hands on him, dragged him to them, and thereon laid
his head, and being ready with their clubs, to beate out his braines, Pocahontas the
Kings dearest daughter, when no intreaty could prevaile, got his head in her
armes, and laid her owne upon his to sabe him from death ...
(from an extract presented in Kuppermann, 64)

The significant time-gap immediately gave rise to speculations
whether the events took place as described by him or, even worse, whether
they took place at all. Smith himself
claimed that he had related the story to Queen Anne in a letter in 1616, but,
of course, the letter could not be found and Queen Anne had already died by
1624. Likewise all possible witnesses of the scene were either dead
(Pocahontas, Powhatan) or could not be interrogated because the war (1622-1640)
had made the Indians and the English enemies.What made him even more suspicious
is the fact that his narration follows archetypal patterns. Smith's contemporaries
knew such stories from Greek mythology (i.e.: Ariadne/Theseus) or from
recent history. In 1529, for instance, Juan Ortiz, a Spanish soldier, was reported
to have been saved under similar circumstances by an Indian girl in Florida.
Thus Smith might just have invented his story following the outlines of
similar stories in order to add a fictional quality to his otherwise
dry historical writing. Theweleit suggests that Smith knew that for any writing to be attractive and effective it needs a
fictional element.

Some critics have argued that Smith misinterpreted the situation completely,
given that the whole scene ever took place: He never was in real danger,
his execution was just staged. He had to die symbolically to be born again -
and here opinions differ greatly - either as subordinate chief of the settlers,
recognized by Powhatan, or as Powhatan's adopted son Nantaquoud. However
unclear Pocahontas' role in this ceremony of initiation/adoption may be, her
intervention has accordingly been interpreted as part of the ritual. Unfortunately
there is no evidence for such ceremonies directly from the Algonkins, but some
Northwestern tribes are known to have performed such death-and-initiation
rituals. According to this interpretation Powhatan pursued a policy of
integration during the early stages of white settlement. Yet the question
remains unanswered why Smith did not relate these events in his report of 1608.
Various answers have been given, such as that he might have been embarrassed
to have been saved by a 12-year-old girl, or that political considerations
could have forced him to keep silent or that the editor simply shortened the
story, but none of them is convincing enough. Theweleit speculates that
Smith tried to confirm his manhood in the manner of the popular story of the
gentleman of the South, that he attempted to draw attention to him after a
more or less uneventful, unsuccessful life in Europe and that he tried to
portray a noble exception of a wild red girl saving a Christian.

Every school child knows that Captain Smith was a hero, a historian, and Pocahonta's
sweetheart - or that he was a dastard, a liar and, so far as Pocahontas was concerned
- an ingrate. It depends on whose life of Smith you read.
(Barbour, ix)